I’m counting myself lucky because Plant Select exec director Pat Hayward says they’re running out of copies at every event they take it to. ProGreen, the green industry’s big January conference, had sold out of 100 copies by the second day of the weeklong event.

“Fulcrum (the publisher) has been blown away by the response,” Pat told me over the phone. “Whenever there’s a speaker who brings copies with them, they sell out. I think it’s because it’s so beautiful.”

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Pat says it was book designer Ann W. Douden’s idea to intertwine the botanical drawings, generated by Denver Botanical Garden classes, into the wheelbarrow-loads of photographs of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals chosen for their adaptibility in Colorado and other plains and intermountain landscapes. If you’re not familiar with Plant Select, a joint effort of Colorado State University, the Denver Botanic Gardens and area nurseries and plant experts, you can read more here. [2]

The book happened “by committee” over four years, Pat says. From the beginning, there was a push to get photos of every plant, in all seasons, in and out of flower. “David Winger finally went out and shot a bunch last summer.” Other passionate gardeners donated photos to the effort. Editor James E. Heinrich, CSU prof James E. Klett and the Botanic Gardens’ Panayoti Kelaidis and Dan Johnson contributed introductory chapters. But the stars are the plants themselves, each of them profiled in a two-page spread with comments on use, propagation, range, origin, needs, and — gasp — disadvantages (that lovely, salmon-colored “Mesa Verde” ice plant, for example? not as xeric as the other ice plant cultivars). My favorite feature of the book is tucked on the lower left-hand corner of each spread — a little schematic that shows how big — or small — the plant is in comparison to a human.

“It’s supposed to be a whole palette,” Pat says of Plant Select’s picks. There’s even a food plant: a gooseberry that’s been proven hardy as far north and high up as Cheyenne, Wyoming.

“To see these plants become so mainstream, that are so perfect for here,” is what excites Pat about the book. Me, I just want to fall into the pictures. I’m sort of dismayed that it’s so gorgeous, because I know my copy will be well-thumbed and likely coffee-stained in no time.
And oh, yeah — I’ll probably get it dirty.